… where I learned that he read Jaynes’ bicameral mind theory and posited the opposite. Instead of humans once having had a “divided brain” in which one lobe “spoke” to the other in the voice of gods (Jaynes’ theory), Wilson suggests that it is we, modern man, whose brain is bicameral. That the brains of our ancestors worked wholistically, and it is we whose brains have split into mostly disconnected bicameral opposites. The good side of this split is that it allowed for the development of reason, which has allowed us to advance so far as a species. The downside is that it cut us off from the gods. I am still researching myself which of Wilson’s own books this is all spelled out in, as all I’ve really read so far is the biography above. I recommend it as a starting place, though. It’s a fascinating read.

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